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DAVIS 


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PUBLICATIONS  OF  THE  CONNECTICUT  SOCIETY  OFTHE  ORDER 
OF  THE  FOUNDERS  AND  PATRIOTS  OF  AMERICA 


No.  7 


ANTI-SLAVERY    BEFORE 
GARRISON 


BY 


REV.    LEONARD   WOOLSEY   BACON,    D.D. 


NEW  HAVEN,  CONN.,  A.D.  1903 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUR>RHI& 
DAVIS 


The    Order   of  the   Founders   and 
Patriots  of  America 


The  ORDER  OF  THE  FOUNDERS  AND  PATRIOTS  OF  AMERICA 
was  incorporated  in  the  city  of  New  York,  March  18,  1896. 
The  objects  for  which  it  was  established  are  indicated  in  the 
second  article  of  the  Constitution,  as  follows  : 

1.  To  bring   together   and   associate   men  whose   ancestors 
struggled  together  for  life  and  liberty,  home  and  happiness,  in 
this  land,  when  it  was  a  new  and  unknown  country,  and  whose 
line  of  descent  from  them  comes  through  patriots  who  sustained 
the  Colonies  in  the  struggle  for  independence  in  the  Revolu 
tionary  War. 

2.  To  teach   reverent   regard   for   the   names   and   history, 
character  and  perseverance,  deeds  and  heroism,  of  the  founders 
of  this  country  and  their  patriotic  descendants. 

3.  To   inculcate   patriotism    in    the    Associates    and    their 
descendants. 

4.  To  discover,    collect   and    preserve  records,    documents, 
manuscripts,    monuments   and   history   relating    to    the    first 
colonists,  their  ancestors  and  descendants. 

5.  To  commemorate  and  celebrate  events  in  the  history,  of 
the  Colonies  and  the  Republic. 

6.  Other  historical  and  patriotic  purposes. 


THE  CONNECTICUT  SOCIETY  OF  THE  ORDER  OF  THE 
FOUNDERS  AND  PATRIOTS  OF  AMERICA  was  organized  May 
9,  1896.  The  following  are  the  Charter  Associates  of  the 
Society  : 

MAJ.  FRANK  WILLIAM  Mix, 
CHARGES  MATHER  GLAZIER, 
JOHN  EMERY  MORRIS, 
FRANCIS  DURANDO  NICHOLS, 
JAMES  EMERY  BROOKS, 
JONATHAN  FLYNT  MORRIS, 
WILLIAM  CHARLES  RUSSELL, 
COL.  EDWARD  EVERETT  SILL, 
COL.  CHARLES  ALEXANDER  JEWELL. 


OFFICERS   OF  THE   CONNECTICUT  SOCIETY 

1902-1903 


COL.  EDWARD  EVERETT  SILL,  GOVERNOR,       .  .  New  Haven 

WALTER  COLLYER  FAXON,  DEPUTY  GOVERNOR,  .  Hartford 

REV.  DRYDEN  WILLIAM  PHELPS,  CHAPLAIN,  .  .  New  Haven 

CHARLES  LEWI  NICHOLS  CAMP,    SECRETARY,  .  New  Haven 

ERNEST  BRADFORD  ELLSWORTH,  TREASURER,  .  Hartford 

SYLVESTER  CLARK  DUNHAM,  STATE  ATTORNEY,  .  Hartford 

GEORGE  FRANKLIN  NEWCOMB,  REGISTRAR,    .  .  New  Haven 

CHARLES  HENRY  SMITH,  LL.D.,  HISTORIAN,     .  .  New  Haven 
WILLIAM  FRANCIS  JOSEPH  BOARDMAN,  GENEALOGIST,  Hartford 


COUNCILLORS 
(Three  Years} 

GEORGE  COMSTOCK,  .  .  .  . 
MAJOR  GEORGE  WHITE  TUCKER,  . 
HON.  THEODORE  SEDGWICK  GOLD, 

(Two  Years') 


HENRY  WHITING  LUPTON,     . 

COL.  CHARLES  ALEXANDER  JEWELL, 

COL.  NORRIS  GALPIN  OSBORN, 


Bridgeport 

Waterbury 

West  Cornwall 


(One  Year) 

HON.  JAMES  DUDLEY  DEWELL,  . 
WALTER  COLLYER  FAXON,   . 
ROBERT  CROMER  GLAZIER,  . 


Stratford 

Hartford 

New  Haven 


New  Haven 
Hartford 
Hartford 


ANTI-SLAVERY    BEFORE 
GARRISON 


AN  ADDRESS  AT  A  MEETING  OF  THE 
CONNECTICUT  SOCIETY  OF  THE  ORDER 
OF  THE  FOUNDERS  AND  PATRIOTS  OF 
AMERICA,  SEPTEMBER  19,  A.D.  1902 


BY 

REV.  LEONARD  WOOLSEY  BACON,  D.D. 


THE   TUTTLE,    MOREHOUSE    &    TAYLOR    COMPANY, 
NEW    HAVEN,    CONN. 


ANTI-SLAVERY  BEFORE  GARRISON. 


Among  the  most  grateful  duties  of  the  Order  of  the 
Founders  and  Patriots  of  America  must,  of  course,  be 
reckoned  that  of  commemorating  the  virtues  and  hon 
orable  deeds  of  leaders  whose  worth  is  universally 
known  and  acknowledged. 

An  even  higher  duty  is  to  rescue  from  neglect  and 
oblivion  the  record  of  unknown  or  forgotten  patriots. 
It  is  a  duty  which  this  Connecticut  Society  of  the 
Order  has  fulfilled,  by  the  graceful  pen  of  its  Gov 
ernor,  with  distinguished  fidelity  and  success. 

A  duty  still  more  imperative  sometimes  emerges — 
that  of  defending  the  memory  of  the  fathers  from  sys 
tematic  defamation  and  detraction.  Sectarian  animos 
ity,  partisan  rancor,  and  even  the  ignoble  ambition  to 
extol  the  memory  of  some  favorite  by  disparaging 
worthier  names,  have  again  and  again  incited  to  the 
shameful  business  of  covering  some  of  the  fairest 
pages  of  American  history  with  ugly  and  malicious 
blots.  It  is  this  third  task,  that  of  defending  the 
Founders  and  Patriots  from  defamation,  which  I  have 
prescribed  to  myself  to-day. 

There  is  no  point  on  which  our  Founders  and 
Patriots  have  been  more  studiously  traduced  than  in  the 
misrepresentation,  or  the  non-representation,  of  their 
record  concerning  slavery. 

That  record  is  eminently  noble  and  honorable. 
Among  the  first  and  most  important  entries  in  it  is 


that  Act  of  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  as 
early  as  1641,  declaring  that  with  the  exception  of 
lawful  captives  taken  in  just  wars,  no  slavery  should 
ever  be  in  the  colony.  Five  years  later,  it  took  meas 
ures  for  returning  to  Africa  the  captives  of  a  slave  ship. 
If,  thirty  years  later  still,  slavery  had  nevertheless 
gotten  some  foothold  in  the  colony,  it  was  in  face  of 
an  impassioned  protest,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  from 
the  apostolic  John  Eliot.  From  that  first  generation 
down,  the  succession  of  anti-slavery  agitators  has 
never  once  been  interrupted,  nor  failed  to  include  some 
of  the  noblest  names  among  the  Founders  and  Patriots. 
It  is  no  disparagement  to  other  sections  to  claim  that 
in  this  the  Founders  and  Patriots  of  New  England 
took  the  lead.  The  popular  impression  that  some 
precedence  is  to  be  conceded  to  the  Quakers  is  a  mis 
taken  one.  The  voice  of  the  "  Pennsylvania  Pilgrim  " 
was  not  lifted  up  until  nearly  a  half -century  after  the 
act  of  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  which  was 
the  voice  of  the  church  as  well  as  of  the  state.  The 
Quakers  of  Rhode  Island  learned  their  anti-slavery 
principles  from  the  Connecticut  deacon  who  declared 
to  "  College  Tom  "  Hazard,  in  1742,  that  the  Quakers 
were  no  Christians  because  they  held  their  fellow-men 
in  slavery  ;*  and  afterward  from  the  two  Connecticut 
pastors  at  Newport,  Samuel  Hopkins  and  Ezra  Stiles  v 
These  names  bring  us  near  home,  and  bring  us  down  to 
the  Revolutionary  period  when  generous  men,  contend 
ing  for  their  own  inalienable  rights, were  not  unmindful 
of  the  rights  of  others.  It  was  in  1774  that  Levi  Hart,  of 

*See  the  "  Life  of   College  Tom,"  by  his  grandson's   granddaughter, 
Caroline  Hazard. 


Preston,  was  invited  to  His  native  town  of  Farmington 
to  preach  His  anti-slavery  sermon  to  "  tHe  corporation 
of  freemen ;  "  and  tHe  next  year  that  Aaron  Cleveland, 
of  NorwicH,  Hatter,  poet,  legislator,  minister  of  tHe 
gospel  and  tribune  of  tHe  people,  published  His 
anti-slavery  poem.  It  was  distinctly  in  tHe  line  of 
this  succession  that  Jonathan  Edwards  the  Second, 
friend  of  Hopkins,  preached  at  New  Haven,  before  the 
Connecticut  Abolition  Society  of  which  Ezra  Stiles 
was  president,  His  powerful  and  widely  influential  dis 
course  against  the  slave  trade  and  the  whole  system  of 
slavery. 

This  was  in  1791,  and  brings  us  near  to  the  opening 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  For  brevity's  sake  I  must 
cut  short  this  account  of  the  earlier  days  of  anti-slavery 
effort,  although  there  are  noble  pages  of  history  still 
unwritten  Here,  and  although  the  first  two  decades  of 
the  century  include  the  history  of  the  first  great  national 
controversy  over  the  slavery  question.  But  although  the 
story  has  never  been  adequately  written,  there  really  is 
not  much  that  is  doubtful  about  it.  It  is  only  when  we 
come  to  the  decade  from  1820  to  1830,  a  period  Hardly 
beyond  the  memory  of  some  of  us,  that  we  find  our 
selves  in  the  presence  of  most  contradictory  and  con 
fusing  statements.  I  propose  to  compare  and  examine 
these  in  the  interest  of  the  truth  of  history. 

On  the  one  hand,  it  is  declared,  with  impressive 
iteration  and  reiteration,  that  this  period  was  one  of 
general  apathy  and  indifference  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  and  the  wrongs  and  needs  of  the  colored  race. 
Mr.  Garrison,  speaking  of  the  time  when  he  began  his 
agitation  (which  was  about  1830),  says : 


10 


"There  was  scarcely  a  man  in  all  the  land  who 
dared  to  peep  or  mutter  on  the  subject  of  slavery ;  the 
pulpit  and  the  press  were  dumb  ;  no  anti-slavery  organ 
izations  were  made;  no  public  addresses  were  deliv 
ered  ;  no  reproofs,  no  warnings,  no  entreaties  were 
uttered  in  the  ears  of  the  people ;  silence,  almost  un 
broken  silence,  prevailed  universally.  *  *  *  It 
was  necessary  to  wake  up  a  nation  then  slumbering  in 
the  lap  of  moral  death. ""  (Life,  I,  458.) 

Mrs.  Lydia  Maria  Child,  publishing  in  1833  her 
"  Appeal  in  favor  of  the  Africans,"  claims  for  Mr.  Gar 
rison  "  the  merit  of  having  first  called  public  attention 
to  a  neglected  and  very  important  subject,"  and  says : 

"  In  this  country  we  have  not,  until  very  recently, 
dared  to  publish  anything  upon  the  subject  (of  slavery). 
Our  books,  our  reviews,  our  newspapers,  our  alma 
nacs,  have  all  been  silent,  or  exerted  their  influence  on 
the  wrong  side.  The  negro's  crimes  are  repeated,  but 
his  sufferings  are  never  told.  Even  in  our  geographies 
it  is  taught  that  the  colored  race  must  always  be 
degraded."  (Quoted  in  Qu.  Chr.  Spectator,  VI,  454, 
452.) 

Mr.  Oliver  Johnson,  who  had  ample  means  of  inform 
ing  himself,  if  he  had  been  disposed  to  use  them,  says 
of  the  period  from  1821  to  1829 : 

"  There  was  hardly  a  ripple  of  excitement  about 
slavery  in  any  part  of  the  nation.  The 

anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  country  had  become  too 
feeble  to  utter  even  a  whisper.  From  one  year's  end 
to  another  there  was  scarcely  a  newspaper  in  all  the 
land  that  made  the  slightest  allusion  to  the  subject. 
*  *  *  Pulpit  and  press  were  generally  silent.  If 
they  spoke  at  all,  it  was  only  to  say  that  slavery  was 
too  dangerous  a  subject  to  be  discussed.  *  *  *  The 


— II — 

state  was  morally  paralyzed ;  the  pulpit  was  dumb ; 
the  church  heeded  not  the  cry  of  the  slave."  (Gar 
rison  and  His  Times,  21-23.) 

In  like  manner  Mr.  Wendell  Phillips  (among  whose 
unquestionably  brilliant  endowments  the  faculty  of 
exact  statement  was  not  included),  at  Mr.  Garrison's 
funeral,  glorifying  his  hero's  exceptional  and  solitary 
keenness  of  conscience  on  this  subject,  at  a  time  when 
"  Christianity  and  statesmanship,  the  experience,  the 
genius  of  the  land,  were  aghast,  amazed  and  con 
founded,"  speaks  of  "  the  miracle  of  that  insight " 
amid  u  the  blackness  of  the  darkness  of  ignorance  and 
indifference  which  then  brooded  over  what  was  called 
the  moral  and  religious  element  of  the  American  peo 
ple."  (Eulogy,  2.) 

I  might  add  page  after  page  of  quotations  on  this 
side  of  the  question,  but  let  one  more  suffice.  This 
time  it  shall  be  from  Mr.  Elizur  Wright.  Referring 
to  this  same  period,  he  declares : 

"  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say,  this  nation,  in  church 
and  state,  from  President  to  bootblack — I  mean  the 
white  bootblack — was  thoroughly  pro-slavery.  In  the 
Sodom  there  might  have  been  a  Lot  or  two  here  and 
there,  some  profound  thinker  who  wished  justice  to  be 
done  though  the  heavens  fall,  but  he  was  despondent. 
It  seemed  as  though  nearly  the  whole  business  of  the 
press,  the  pulpit  and  the  theological  seminary  was  to 
reconcile  the  people  to  the  permanent  degradation  and 
slavery  of  the  negro  race."  (In  Life  of  Garrison,  I, 

298.) ' 

So  much  for  this  side.  Now  let  us  compare  some 
other  statements  as  to  the  state  of  public  opinion  on 


-12 — 


this  same  subject  in  the  same  community  during  this 
identical  period. 

No  man  lived  at  that  time  who  was  more  competent 
to  testify  concerning  "  the  moral  and  religious  element 
of  the  American  people  "  in  all  parts  of  the  country 
than  Jeremiah  Evarts.  A  young  New  Haven  lawyer, 
son-in-law  to  Roger  Sherman,  he  laid  down  his  prac 
tice  in  this  city  and  removed  to  Boston,  where  he 
became  editor  of  a  religious  magazine  and  Secretary  of 
the  American  Board  for  Foreign  Missions.  He  was 
father  of  William  M.  Evarts  and  uncle  to  the  "  old 
man  eloquent, "  the  senior  Senator  from  Massachu 
setts,  and  was  in  some  measurements  a  greater  man 
than  even  his  illustrious  kinsmen.  Never  in  his  life 
time  was  there  a  struggle  between  public  righteous 
ness  and  public  wrong  in  which  he  was  not  felt  and 
feared  as  a  champion  of  the  right.  At  the  end  of 
his  brave  fight  against  the  extension  of  slavery  into 
Missouri,  he  rallied  the  anti-slavery  forces  from  the 
momentary  depression  of  their  defeat,  in  a  series  of 
powerful  and  widely  influential  articles,  in  which  he 
speaks  of  the  compensations  of  that  great  failure. 
Says  he : 

"  A  powerful  and  united  testimony  has  been  borne, 
throughout ,  a  large  part  of  our  nation,  against  the 
extension  of  slavery ;  reasons  have  been  urged, 
founded  in  the  eternal  principles  of  justice  and  com 
mending  themselves  to  the  dispassionate  judgment  not 
less  than  to  the  feeling  heart ;  the  country  is  awake  to 
the  dangers  of  slavery ;  *  *  *  and  a  great  and 
general  sympathy  is  felt  for  the  blacks,  and  a  deep 
interest  in  all  plans  for  the  improvement  of  their  con 
dition."  (Panoplist,  XVI,  72.) 


—13— 

and  he  proceeds  to  enforce  the  importance,  without 
losing  a  day,  of  general,  sustained,  systematic  effort 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery.  (Ibid.,  241-5,  481-494.) 

This  was  in  1820.  Three  years  later  we  have  a 
striking  and  highly  trustworthy  indication  of  the  pre 
cise  shade  of  "  the  blackness  of  the  darkness  of  igno 
rance  and  indifference  which  then  brooded  over  what 
was  called  the  moral  and  religious  element  of  the 
American  people."  (I  quote  again  Mr.  Phillips  Js 
rhetorical  phraseology.)  The  "  Society  of  Inquiry 
Concerning  Missions  "  of  Andover  Seminary  included 
within  the  scope  of  its  studies  whatever  concerned  the 
progress  of  "  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteous 
ness."  In  the  MS.  volume  of  its  Transactions  for 
about  1823,  out  °f  s*x  elaborate  dissertations,  not  less 
than  four  (a  very  fair  percentage)  are  devoted  to  the 
abolition  of  slavery  and  the  elevation  of  the  colored 
people.  One  of  these  discusses  the  question,  "  What 
is  the  duty  of  the  Government,  and  the  duty  of 
Christians,  with  regard  to  slavery  in  the  United 
States?"  The  writer,  Royal  Washburn,  began  with 
a  statement  which  would  have  been  met  with  a  chorus 
of  contradictions  from  his  fellow  students  if  they  had 
not  known  it  to  be  true : 

"  Perhaps  there  is  not  a  more  marked  feature  in  the 
history  of  modern  benevolent  operations  than  the 
efforts  made  in  favor  of  the  unfortunate  Africans. 
Forty  years  ago,  there  were  few  to  weep  over  the 
wrongs  and  wretchedness  of  slavery ;  now  thousands 
call  the  sons  of  Africa  brethren,  thousands  are  willing 
to  devote  their  money  and  their  efforts  to  redeem  them 
from  their  long  captivity,  and  thousands  offer  the  daily 
prayer  to  him  who  *  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations 


—14— 

to  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  earth/  that  he  would 
shorten  the  days  of  darkness  and  crime,  and  hasten 
that  day  of  light  and  glory  when  oppressions  shall 
cease,  and  a  universal  jubilee  be  proclaimed  for  all  the 
enslaved  of  the  human  family." 

Coming  down  two  years  later,  to  1825,  we  come  to  a 
testimony  in  some  respects  more  impressive  and  more 
unmistakable  still.  In  that  year  was  published  at 
Charleston,  S.  C.,  the  second  edition  of  a  pamphlet 
entitled,  "  A  concise  view  of  the  critical  situation  and 
future  prospects  of  the  slave-holding  States,  in  relation 
to  their  colored  population ;  by  Whitemarsh  B.  Sea- 
brook."  The  "  critical  situation  "  therein  depicted  is 
occasioned  by  the  widespread  agitation  of  the  slavery 
question  at  the  North  and  at  the  South,  and  in  the 
national  Congress.  The  writer  says  : 

"  Under  the  specious  plea  of  aiding  the  cause  of  the 
free  colored  population  and  of  effecting  a  reformation 
in  the  condition  of  this  portion  of  the  community,  the 
pulpit  and  the  bar,  the  press  and  the  legislative  hall, 
have  vied  in  the  delineation  of  a  picture  around  which, 
like  the  cross  of  olden  time,  the  modern  crusaders  will 
be  invited  to  rally.  From  these  sources  it  has  been 
asserted  that  slavery  contradicts  the  primary  princi 
ples  of  our  government;  that  our  slaves  are  wretched, 
and  their  wretchedness  ought  to  be  alleviated;  that 
they  are  dangerous  to  the  community,  and  this  danger 
ought  to  be  removed ;  and  that,  if  the  evils  attendant 
on  the  circumstances  of  our  colored  population  are  not 
speedily  eradicated,  God  in  his  righteous  judgment 
will  raise  up  a  Touissaint  or  a  Spartacus,  or  an  African 
Tecumseh,  to  demand  by  what  authority  we  hold  them 
in  subjection." 

Then,  referring  to  certain  legislative  proceedings  and 


proposals  and  memorials  in  Congress,  lie  puts  some 
indignant  questions  about  these  agitators  : 

"  Why  have  they  said  to  Congress,  '  lend  us  your 
aid  to  strike  the  fetters  from  the  slave  and  to  spread 
the  enjoyment  of  unfettered  freedom  over  the  whole 
of  our  favored  and  happy  land  ? '  Why  have  they 
declared  that  our  slaves  cannot  long  be  kept  in  igno 
rance  ;  that  they  are  surrounded  with  the  memorials 
of  freedom ;  that  the  land  which  they  watered  with 
their  tears  is  a  land  of  liberty ;  that  they  are  never 
slow  in  learning  that  they  are  fettered ;  and  that  free 
dom  is  the  birthright  of  humanity?  " 

And  he  makes  this  bitter  complaint  of  the  northern 
press  : 

u  In  the  newspapers  of  the  North  and  East,  the 
question  of  emancipation  is  as  calmly  and  soberly  dis 
cussed  as  if  it  were  a  subject  in  the  decision  of  which 
the  interests  of  a  few  individuals  alone  were  concerned. 
There  are  but  few  numbers  of  their  numerous  period 
ical  works  that  have  not  an  article  on  this  copious 
topic  ;  scarcely  a  book  whose  pages  are  not  sullied  by 
the  most  distorted  representations  of  the  state  of 
domestic  servitude  at  the  South.  Whatever  may  be  the 
nature  of  the  subject ;  whatever  the  design  of  the  pub 
lication,  whether  to  sketch  the  character  of  the  signers 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  or  to  instruct  the 
youthful  mind  in  the  first  rudiments  of  knowledge ; 
slavery,  slavery,  slavery  is  there.  Against  the  consti 
tutional  privileges  of  the  slave-holder,  to  use  the  hor 
rible  and  savage  language  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  it 
would  seem  as  if  they  had  '  declared  interminable  war 
— war  for  themselves  and  for  their  children  and  for 
their  grandchildren — war  without  peace — war  without 
truce — war  without  quarter.' ' 

Coming  down  to  particulars,  the  writer  adds  that  he 


has  "  read  several  books  for  youth,  manufactured  at 
Boston  and  New  York,  with  a  page  or  two  devoted  to 
the  description  of  the  horrors  and  sin  of  negro  slavery," 
and  refers  to  many  newspapers  by  name  as  eminently 
obnoxious,  and  particularly  to  the  Boston  Recorder.* 
All  this,  you  will  remember,  is  an  account  of  the  facts 
as  they  were  in  that  "  period  of  the  blackness  of  the 
darkness  of  ignorance  and  indifference,"  when  "  the 
pulpit  and  the  press  were  dumb  "  and  "  silence  pre 
vailed  universally,"  when  "  it  was  necessary  "  for  Mr. 
Garrison  "  to  wake  up  a  nation  then  slumbering  in  the 
lap  of  moral  death." 

Now  the  inevitable  question  arises,  How  are  these 
two  different  representations  to  be  reconciled?  And 
the  answer  is  equally  inevitable :  they  cannot  be 
reconciled.  They  are  not  merely  different,  they  are 
mutually  contradictory.  One  of  them  is  true;  the  other 
is  false — I  do  not  say  mendacious,  but  flatly,  squarely, 
absolutely  false.  The  years  immediately  preceding 
the  advent  of  Mr.  Garrison  as  an  anti-slavery  reformer 
were  not  a  period  of  apathy,  ignorance,  and  inactivity 
on  the  subject  of  slavery.  That  period  was  one  of 
deep,  earnest,  intelligent  and  religious  anti-slavery 
conviction,  and  of  earnest,  systematic,  wise  and  effeft- 
ive  anti-slavery  effort.  The  contrary  representation, 
as  I  have  quoted  it  from  Wendell  Phillips  and  Oliver 
Johnson  and  Mrs.  Child,  and  Mr.  Garrison  himself,  is 
a  mere  fiction  which  there  is  a  persistent  attempt  to 
force  upon  history  by  dint  of  sturdy  reiteration. 

*See  quotations  in   Qu.    Chr.    Spectator,    VI,    453-4.     A  copy   of  the 
pamphlet  may  be  found  in  the  Yale  Library. 


— 17- 
Th  e  anti-slavery  sentiment  and  activity  of  the  coun 
try  during  the  agitation  of  the  Missouri  question  had 
not  been  confined  to  any  section.  The  solemn  deliv 
erance  of  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  1818,  condemning  slavery  as  "  a  gross  vio 
lation  of  the  most  precious  and  sacred  rights  of  human 
nature ;  as  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  law  of  God, 
which  requires  us  to  love  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  ; 
and  as  totally  irreconcilable  with,  the  spirit  and  prin 
ciples  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,"  was  the  unanimous  act 
of  that  body  which,  as  much  as  any  other,  represented 
the  intelligent  moral  and  religious  sentiment  of  the 
South  as  well  as  of  the  North.  It  was  pronounced  in 
view  of  the  Missouri  question.  And  the  resistance  to 
that  prohibition  of  slavery  in  Missouri,  which  was 
demanded  thus  by  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation,  was 
based  not  on  the  defense  of  slavery,  for  slavery  then 
had  no  defenders,  but  on  points  of  constitutional  law. 
Henry  Clay,  who  led  the  effort  for  the  admission  of 
Missouri  as  a  slave  State,  did  so  declaring  his  detesta 
tion  of  slavery,  that  "  foul  blot,"  as  he  afterwards 
called  it,  "  that  deepest  stain  on  the  character  of  our 
country."1  Whether  or  not  he  was  sincere  in  these 
protestations  is  an  unimportant  question.  If  sincere, 
they  are  a  striking  proof  of  the  state  of  public  opinion 
as  exemplified  in  this  most  representative  man ;  if 
insincere,  they  are  a  still  stronger  proof  of  the  state  of 
public  opinon  as  estimated  by  this  most  accomplished 
politician. 

The  anti-slavery  revival,  when  once  the  people  had 

*Life  and  Speeches  of  Clay,  N.  Y.,  1843,  J»  I28,  281. 


drawn  breath  after  trie  Missouri  question  was  settled, 
prevailed  with  great  vigor  in  the  more  northern  slave 
States.  In  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Caro 
lina,  Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  there  were  more  than 
a  hundred  abolition  societies.  In  Maryland,  the  anti- 
slavery  citizens  were  organized  as  a  political  party, 
running  their  candidates,  sometimes  successfully,  on 
a  distinctly  anti-slavery  platform.  In  Virginia,  that 
discussion  of  the  slavery  question  was  going  forward 
which  was  to  culminate  in  1831  in  a  vote  for  abolition, 
in  the  State  convention,  which  narrowly  fell  short  of 
being  a  majority.  In  North  Carolina  and  Tennessee 
the  anti-slavery  sentiment  was  growing  beyond  all 
precedent,  intrenching  itself  in  the  deepest  moral  and 
religious  principle,  and  organizing  itself  for  legislative 
adtion. 

Crossing  now  to  Illinois,  we  find  ourselves  in  the 
midst  of  one  of  the  most  strenuous  anti-slavery  strug 
gles  in  our  history,  and'  one  of  the  most  triumphant. 
The  new  State  had  been  peopled  chiefly  from  the 
South,  and  the  plan  was  laid,  by  asserting  the  same 
claims  that  had  prevailed  in  Missouri,  to  establish 
slavery  here  on  free  soil.  The  State  was  plowed  and 
cross-plowed  with  the  agitation,  which  awakened  the 
interest  of  the  whole  nation.  It  continued  for  eighteen 
months  under  intense  excitement,  and  ended  with  the 
complete  defeat  of  the  slavery  project.  The  opposi 
tion  to  it  was  led  by  the  Baptist  and  Methodist  clergy, 
most  of  them  Southern  men.  The  vote  took  place  in 
August,  1824.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  "  apathy, 
indifference  and  paralysis, "  by  which  pulpit,  platform 
and  press  had,  as  we  are  told,  been  "  stricken  dumb," 


— 19— 

really  extended  to  Illinois,  nor  to  Indiana*  and  Ohio, 
which  were  involved  in  the  same  controversy  and  deliv 
ered  by  the  same  victory. 

But  perhaps  we  are  too  severe  in  insisting  on  a 
strict  construction  of  this  language  ;  perhaps  it  was 
used  in  a  loose  and  inexact  way,  as  if  applying  to  the 
country  at  large,  when  it  was  only  meant  to  apply  to 
New  England,  and  especially  to  the  region  about  New- 
buryport  and  Boston.  We  may  freely  admit  that  a 
loose  and  inexact  use  of  language  was  habitual  with 
the  class  of  writers  with  whom  we  are  dealing;  and  mak 
ing  every  concession  of  this  kind  that  may  be  claimed, 
we  may  proceed  to  examine  the  evidences  and  symp 
toms  of  that  apathy,  indifference  and  paralysis,  that 
dumbness  and  deadness  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  that 
is  charged  against  New  England,  and  especially  against 
Boston  and  Essex  County,  and  more  especially  still 
against  the  church,  the  pulpit  and  the  press. 

If  we  turn  back  to  trace  to  their  sources  the  quota 
tions  made  in  the  year  1825  ^Y  Mr.  Whitemarsh  B. 
Seabrook  of  South  Carolina,  as  proving  the  existence 
of  a  purpose  of  implacable,  interminable  war  against 
slavery — "  war  without  peace,  war  without  truce,  war 
without  quarter," — we  find  some  of  them  in  certain 
strong  anti-slavery  speeches,  memorials,  legislative 

*"  Those  who  owned  slaves  in  the  primitive  community  assumed  supe 
riority  to  those  who  had  none  ;  but  questionings  about  the  peculiar  insti 
tution  were  in  the  air,  the  contest  in  favor  of  excluding  slavery  having 
been  settled  only  about  the  time  the  Lincolns  moved  to  Indiana,  so  that  its 
echoes  must  have  resounded  in  the  Gentryville  grocery.  In  1822,  when 
Lincoln  was  thirteen,  an  abolition  newspaper  was  started  about  one  hun 
dred  miles  from  the  village  ;  and  during  his  whole  boyhood  and  youth 
there  was  plenty  to  lead  his  mind,  at  least  occasionally,  to  the  topic." 
HapgoocPs  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  p.  16. 


20 


resolutions,  etc.,  by  friends  of  the  Colonization  Society  ; 
but  the  strongest  of  the  expressions  which,  circulated 
widely  at  the  South,  excited  the  indignation  and  alarm 
of  Mr.  Seabrook  of  South  Carolina,  are  traceable,  singu 
larly  enough,  to  this  very  region  of  "  the  blackness 
and  darkness  of  ignorance  and  indifference,"  which  was 
about  to  be  irradiated  by  the  sudden  effulgence  of  Mr. 
Garrison.  They  were  contained  in  the  report  of  a  com 
mittee  of  the  An  do  ver  "  Society  of  Inquiry  concern 
ing  Missions, "  "On  the  Black  Population  of  the  United 
States."  The  report  contained  such  passages  as  these : 

"  We  have  heard  of  slavery  as  it  existed  in  the 
nations  of  antiquity — we  have  heard  of  slavery  as  it 
exists  in  Asia  and  Africa  and  Turkey — we  have  heard 
of  the  feudal  slavery  under  which  the  peasantry  of 
Europe  have  groaned  from  the  days  of  Alaric  until 
now ;  but,  excepting  only  the  horrible  system  of  the 
West  India  Islands,  we  have  never  heard  of  slavery 
in  any  country,  ancient  or  modern,  pagan,  Mohamme 
dan  or  Christian,  so  terrible  in  its  character,  so  per 
nicious  in  its  tendency,  so  remediless  in  its  anticipated 
results,  as  the  slavery  which  exists  in  these  United 
States.  *  *  *  When  we  use  the  strong  language 
which  we  feel  ourselves  compelled  to  use  in  relation  to 
this  subject,  we  do  not  mean  to  speak  of  animal  suffer 
ing,  but  of  an  immense  moral  and  political  evil."  And 
the  report  goes  on  to  denounce  it  as  "  a  system  so 
utterly  repugnant  to  the  feelings  of  unsophisticated 
humanity — a  system  which  permits  all  the  atrocities 
of  the  domestic  slave  trade — which  permits  the  father 
to  sell  his  children  as  he  would  his  cattle — a  system 
which  consigns  one-half  of  the  community  to  hopeless 
and  utter  degradation,  and  which  threatens  in  its  final 
catastrophe  to  bring  down  the  same  ruin  on  the  master 
and  the  slave."  Chr.  Spectator,  1823,  493,  494,  341- 


— 21 — 

Really,  if  we  were  not  told  that  this  was  a  period  of 
universal  apathy  and  indifference  on  the  subject  of 
slavery,  we  might  be  tempted  to  think  that  Mr.  Sea- 
brook  was  more  than  half  right  in  suspecting  that 
there  was  a  tincture  of  anti-slavery  sentiment  in  this 
report.  The  paper  was  recast  in  the  form  of  a  review 
article,  and  published  at  New  Haven  in  two  successive 
numbers  of  The  Christian  Spectator,  in  1823.  By  the 
agency  of  the  Andover  theological  students,  a  pamphlet 
edition  of  it  was  widely  distributed  in  New  England, 
awakening  increased  attention  among  pastors  and 
churches  to  the  question  what  shall  be  done  "  to  relieve 
and  save  the  African  race,  so  degraded  in  Africa,  so 
wronged  and  oppressed  in  America  ?"* 

That  same  year,  1823,  was  held  the  first  of  those 
religious  celebrations  of  the  Fourth  of  July,  which 
were  continued  in  Park  Street  Church,  Boston,  for  sev 
eral  successive  years,  by  a  union  of  Congregationalist 
and  Baptist  churches.  They  were  anti-slavery  cele 
brations.  The  appeal  made  on  this  occasion  in  the 
Boston  Recorder  exhorted  Christian  citizens  at  such 
times  to  "  remember  those  unhappy  fellow  beings  in 
the  midst  of  us,  who,  in  opposition  alike  to  the  prin 
ciples  of  Christianity  and  of  the  charter  of  our  inde 
pendence,  are  held  in  slavery."  This  year  the  orator 
was  the  well-known  philanthropist,  Louis  D wight. 
The  next  year,  it  was  the  young  man  from  Andover 
Seminary,  hardly  out  of  his  boyhood,  whose  Report  to 
the  Society  of  Inquiry  on  the  State  of  our  Black  Pop 
ulation  had  made  so  great  an  impression  throughout 

*"The  Earlier  Anti-Slavery  Days,"  four  articles  in  The  Christian  Union 
for  December  9  and  16,  1874,  and  January  6  and  13,  1875. 


22 


New  England,  and  also  at  the  South.  It  may  easily 
be  believed  that  he  was  full  of  his  subject ;  and  his  sub 
ject  was  a  great  one,  being  nothing  less  than  the  needs 
of  the  African  race,  whether  in  their  native  continent 
or  elsewhere.  On  both  sides  of  the  sea,  both  in  bond 
age  and  in  freedom,  their  condition  was  wretched  and 
degraded.  He  reminded  his  hearers  of  the  two  mil 
lions  of  them  in  our  own  country,  and  the  two  millions 
more  in  the  West  India  islands,  and  bids  them  com 
pute  the  amount  of  the  wretchedness  of  these  four  mil 
lions,  as  a  measure  of  their  "  claim  on  the  sympathies 
and  efforts  of  those  who  have  been  taught  to  love  their 
neighbor  as  themselves."  Then  he  proceeds  : 

"  And  yet  such  a  computation  would  fall  far  short 
of  the  actual  amount  of  that  wretchedness  which,  if  I 
could,  I  would  set  before  you.  Of  these  four  millions, 
the  vast  majority  are  slaves.  And  what  is  it  to  be  a 
slave  ?  We  know  what  it  is  to  be  free.  *  *  *  But 
we  know  not  what  it  is  to  be  a  slave.  We  can  conceive 
indeed  of  stripes,  and  corporal  endurance,  and  long 
days  of  burning  toil ;  but  how  can  we  conceive  of  that 
bondage  of  the  heart,  that  captivity  of  the  soul,  which 
makes  the  slave  a  wretch  indeed  ?  His  intellect  is  a 
blank,  and  we  may  perhaps  form  some  conception  of 
his  ignorance.  The  capabilities  of  his  moral  nature 
are  a  blank,  and  we  may  perhaps  imagine  that  blind 
ness.  But  even  when  we  have  conceived  of  this  intel 
lectual  ignorance  and  this  moral  blindness,  we  know 
not  all  the  degradation  of  the  slave.  We  sometimes 
find  an  individual  whose  spirit  has  been  broken  and 
blasted.  Some  affection  which  engrossed  his  soul, 
and  with  which  all  his  other  affections  were  entwined, 
has  been  withered,  and  his  heart  is  desolate.  The 
hope  on  which  all  his  other  hopes  were  centered  has 


—23— 

been  destroyed,  and  his  being  is  a  wreck.  If  you  have 
ever  seen  such,  a  man,  and  noticed  how  he  seemed  to 
lose  his  high  attributes  of  manhood,  how  his  soul  died 
within  him,  and  he  sunk  down,  as  it  were,  from  the  ele 
vation  of  his  former  existence — you  may  conjecture, 
perhaps,  how  much  of  the  dignity  and  happiness  of  our 
nature,  even  in  minds  purified  by  moral  cultivation 
and  enlarged  by  intellectual  improvement,  depends  on 
the  love  of  social  enjoyment  and  the  softening  influ 
ence  of  affection ;  and  you  may  thus  be  able  faintly  to 
imagine  the  degradation  of  the  slave,  whose  mind  has 
scarcely  been  enlightened  by  one  ray  of  knowledge, 
whose  soul  has  never  been  expanded  by  one  adequate 
conception  of  his  moral  dignity  and  moral  relations, 
and  in  whose  heart  hardly  one  of  those  affections  that 
soften  our  character,  or  of  those  hopes  that  animate 
and  bless  our  being,  has  been  allowed  to  germinate." 

Then  he  urges  the  importance  of  a  large  and  com 
prehensive  system  of  practical  operations  aiming  at  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  the  elevation  of  the  colored  popu 
lation  at  home,  and  the  civilization  and  Christianiza- 
tion  of  Africa.  And  he  claims  that  the  elements  of 
such  a  comprehensive  system  are  already  in  operation 
in  America. 

"  The  means  of  elementary  instruction  and  the 
apparatus  of  moral  and  religious  culture  which  are 
employed  on  our  colored  population  lie  at  the  founda 
tion  of  all  African  improvement.  The  societies  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  are  continually  urging  the  claims 
of  these  unfortunates  with  a  zeal  which  scorns  to  be 
weary  and  which  gathers  impulse  from  discourage 
ment.  The  scheme  of  an  African  seminary  for  liberal 
education,  which  has  been  as  yet  only  slightly  dis 
cussed,  will  not  be  forgotten ;  for  there  are  men 
engaged  in  its  behalf  who  will  never  rest,  while  God 


—24— 

spares  them  to  the  world,  till  trie  chasm  which  they 
now  lament  shall  have  been  filled  up,  and  the  school 
which  they  have  projected  shall  be  sending  forth  its 
pupils  to  become  throughout  the  earth  the  noblest  and 
most  efficient  benefactors  of  Africa." 

Finally,  as  completing  the  system  of  agencies  for 
the  redemption  of  the  whole  African  race,  was  the  pro 
motion  of  a  free  colony  which  should  offer  at  once  a 
career  of  honorable  prosperity  to  the  free  emigrant,  a 
base  for  the  advancement  of  civilization  in  Africa,  and 
an  influence  tending  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  the 
ennobling  of  the  depressed  and  disheartened  colored 
people  in  America. 

These  annual  anti-slavery  speeches  on  the  Fourth 
of  July  were  not  only  continued  at  Park  Street  Church ; 
the  fashion  was  imitated  elsewhere.  As  the  Fourth 
approached  in  1825,  Jonn  Todd,  appointed  orator  for 
Park  Street  Church,  wrote  from  Boston  to  his  prede 
cessor,  Leonard  Bacon,  who  was  now  pastor  at  New 
Haven,  about  their  enthusiastic  plans  for  the  benefit 
of  the  colored  people,  especially  about  the  African  col 
lege.  And  he  adds : 

"  The  subject  of  Africa  is  beginning  to  excite  no 
small  attention  in  this  region.  I  suppose  Bouton  will 
speechify  to  his  people  [the  people  of  Concord,  N.  H.] 
on  the  Fourth  of  July  next ;  Homes,  of  my  class,  will 
do  the  same  at  Andover ;  I  suppose,  also,  some  one  from 
Andover  will  go  to  Salem,  and  some  one  to  Newbury- 
port  on  the  same  errand.  *  *  *  The  questions  I 
wish  you  would  be  so  good  as  to  give  me  your  mind 
upon  are  briefly  these  : 


—25— 

"  i.  Had  we  Andoverians  who  speak  on  this  occa 
sion  (for  all  are  expected  to  take  up  the  subject  of 
Africa)  better  unite  our  heads  and  take  a  similar  track 
— have  a  similar  point  in  view  at  which  to  aim  ? 

"  2.  What  point  or  points  ?  Shall  the  subject  of  an 
African  college  be  the  theme  upon  which  we  shall 
harangue  ? 

"3.  Will  it  do  for  us  to  take  up  the  subject  of  slavery 
in  its  political  aspect  upon  our  country  ?  i.  e.,  shall  the 
feelings  of  patriotism  be  addressed,  or  those  of  the 
Christian  ? 

"4.  Shall  we  plead  the  cause  of  Africa  in  general,  or 
confine  the  attention  to  the  blacks  of  our  own  country  ? 

"  5.  How  directly  and  fully  shall  we  take  up  the 
subject  of  colonizing  the  negroes  by  the  American 
Colonization  Society?" 

Somebody,  it  appears,  was  going  to  Newburyport 
that  Fourth  of  July,  1825,  to  make  an  anti-slavery 
address.  The  subject  was  very  much  in  the  air, 
"  exciting  no  small  attention  in  that  region."  I  won 
der  who  made  the  speech  at  Newburyport ;  and  I  won 
der  who  went  to  hear  it.  There  was  a  bright,  wide 
awake,  enterprising  young  fellow  of  twenty  in  a 
Newburyport  newspaper  office  at  the  time,  by  the 
name  of  Garrison.  The  subject  was  "  exciting  no 
small  attention,"  but  it  did  not  excite  his  attention, 
and  he  does  not  seem  to  have  felt  the  slightest  interest 
in  it.  But  these  Andover  men  were  stirred  to  their 
hearts '  depths  in  opposition  to  slavery.  John  Todd, 
at  Park  Street,  gave  his  reasons  for  thinking  that 
"  Slavery  must  and  will  soon  be  removed  from  off 


—26— 

the  earth,"  and  declared  that  "  the  voice  of  our  nation 
was  praying  for  the  abolition  of  the  curse  of  slavery."* 

That  same  Fourth  of  July,  1825,  young  Mr.  Bacon 
repeated,  in  his  New  Haven  pulpit,  the  "  Plea  for 
Africa  "  which  he  had  delivered  twelve  months  before 
at  Boston.  It  was  printed  in  a  pamphlet,  and  in  this 
form,  and  in  large  extracts  in  newspapers  and  maga 
zines,  was  circulated  alike  through  the  North  and 
through  the  South.  In  concluding  his  argument,  he 
said  to  his  people  :  "I  have  not  spoken  of  the  awful 
curse  of  slavery  on  our  land,  or  of  the  measures  which 
must  speedily  be  adopted  for  its  complete  and  eternal 
abolition.  These  things,  if  God  shall  give  me  strength 
and  opportunity,  I  will  bring  more  distinctly  to  your 
notice  at  some  future  period."  And  both  the  oppor 
tunity  and  the  strength  were  given  him  that  day  twelve 
months,  July  4th,  1826. 

Meanwhile  some  interesting  incidents  had  occurred. 
Two  days  after  the  "  Plea  for  Africa  "  had  been  deliv 
ered,  there  was  a  meeting  of  five  young  men  at  Mr. 
Bacon's  study,  at  which  (I  quote  from  the  record  made 
at  the  time)  it  was  "  Voted,  that  we,  the  Rev.  Leonard 
Bacon,  Mr.  Luther  Wright,  Mr.  Alexander  C.  Twining, 
Mr.  Edward  Beecher,  and  Mr.  Theodore  D.  Woolsey 
do  form  ourselves  into  a  club  to  be  entitled  The  Anti- 
Slavery  Association.  You  will  recognize  some  of 
these  names.  One  of  them  stood  for  many  illustrious 
years  at  the  head  of  Yale  College.  Another  is  traced 
to-day  in  the  name  of  Arthur  Twining  Hadley,  written 
in  the  same  honorable  eminence.  Another  is  the  name 
of  the  man  who  stood  by  the  side  of  Lovejoy  when  he 

*Report  in  Boston  Recorder  of  the  time. 


—27— 

fell  pierced  with  five  bullets,  a  martyr  to  the  freedom 
of  the  press.  By  and  by  they  added  two  or  three  more 
to  their  number,  one  of  whom  was  Josiah  Brewer,  after 
ward  missionary,  father  of  Justice  Brewer  of  the 
Supreme  Court.  Without  advertising  itself  to  the 
public,  The  Anti-Slavery  Association  set  itself  to  work 
along  three  different  lines  at  once  to  promote  the 
abolition  of  slavery. 

The  second  incident  which  I  will  mention  introduces 
to  you  another  of  these  early  anti-slavery  men — the 
Rev.  Ralph  Randolph  Gurley,  secretary  of  the  Amer 
ican  Colonization  Society.  One  of  his  services  to  the 
anti-slavery  cause  had  been  the  printing  of  an  edition 
of  the  sermon  of  the  second  Jonathan  Edwards  against 
the  Slave-trade  and  Slavery,  for  circulation  at  the 
South.  Among  the  papers  of  Leonard  Bacon  is  a  letter 
to  him  from  Mr.  Gurley,  which  illustrates  two  things 
at  once : 

OFFICE  OF  THE  COLONIZATION  SOCIETY,  ) 
WASHINGTON,  March  13,  1826.  j 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  Mr.  Everett's  speech  in  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  last  Thursday  was  an  exhibition  of  talent  and  elo 
quence  which  I  have  never  known  equaled  in  that  place.  It 
has  crowned  him  with  the  glory  of  the  highest  genius.  But 
will  you  believe  that  he  gave  us  his  creed,  uncalled  for,  unneces 
sary  to  his  argument,  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  such  a  one 
as  would  have  branded  the  advocate  of  the  allied  despotisms  of 
Europe  ?  If  he  dares  to  publish  these  sentiments,  which  go  to 
sustain  a  most  iniquitous  system,  our  friends  at  the  North  must 
not  be  silent.  There  is  a  great  battle  to  be  fought,  not  in  Tur 
key  only,  or  in  the  old,  kingly  establishments  of  the  East,  but 
in  our  republic,  in  the  cause  of  justice  and  for  the  defense  of 
what  are  in  the  city  of  Washington  much  ridiculed,  impre 
scriptible  rights.  Have  you  read  John  Randolph's  great 


speech  ?  and  if  so,  did  you  ever  find  such  a  medley  of  wit, 
absurdity,  genius  and  wickedness  bound  up  together,  before  ? 
*  *  *  But  I  have  more  apprehension  of  the  consequences  of 
Everett's  influence.  You  and  all  the  faithful  at  the  North 
will,  I  hope,  be  prepared  to  counteract  it. 

The  apology  for  slavery  winch  roused  the  Coloniza 
tion  Secretary  to  such  towering  indignation,  and  (as 
we  shall  see)  drew  forth  a  fit  response  from  the  young 
pastor  at  New  Haven,  did  not  give  like  offense  in  all 
quarters.  A  copy  of  it  came  to  the  editor  of  The  New- 
buryport  Free  Press  ;  and  he  did  not  see  any  harm  in  it. 
He  thought  it  was  a  good  speech,  and  copied  it  into 
his  newspaper,  without  one  syllable  of  pro  test  or  objec 
tion.  The  editor's  name  was  Garrison. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  sense  of  the  peril  of 
public  demoralization  threatened  by  this  novel  appari 
tion  of  an  apology  for  slavery,  which  helped  to  rouse 
the  preacher's  eloquence  as  he  ascended  the  high  pulpit 
for  his  Fourth  of  July  sermon  of  1826.  But  there  was 
enough  beside  to  move  him.  That  was  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  American  independence,  and  while  the 
cannon  and  the  shouting  were  glorifying  the  half-cen 
tury  of  liberty,  a  sorrowful  and  shameful  contrast  was 
in  the  minds  of  thoughtful  men  everywhere.  In  the 
evening  of  that  day  of  jubilee,  he  announced  for  his 
text  the  words  of  Isaiah : 

CRY  ALOUD  ;  SPARE  NOT  ;  LIFT  THY  VOICE  LIKE 
A  TRUMPET,  AND  SHOW  MY  PEOPLE  THEIR  TRANS 
GRESSIONS. 

"  When  (said  he)  I  hear  of  the  jubilee  of  American 
freedom  ;  when  I  hear  of  the  twelve  millions  of  happy 


—29— 

citizens  who  hail  this  jubilee  with  the  loudest  demon 
strations  of  rejoicing ;  I  cannot  forget  that  of  these 
twelve  millions,  two  millions  are  slaves — aye,  slaves 
in  the  bitterest  meaning  of  that  bitter  word.  The 
thought  is  enough  to  pour  darkness  over  the  exulting 
spirit  of  the  patriot.  It  is  enough  to  make  the 
Christian  tremble  for  the  wrath  of  Him  who  said  of 
old,  (  Ye  have  not  hearkened  unto  me  in  proclaiming 
liberty  every  one  to  his  brother  and  every  man  to  his 
neighbor ;  Behold,  I  proclaim  a  liberty  for  you  to  the 
sword,  to  the  pestilence,  and  to  the  famine.'  " 

I  wish  there  were  time  for  me  to  read  you  the  whole 
of  this  Fourth  of  July  sermon.  You  would  not  find  it 
dull ;  you  would  find  it  full  of  the  spirit  of  universal 
justice  and  liberty.  The  thesis  of  it  is  this  :  that  the 
duty  of  promoting  the  abolition  of  slavery  is  a  dtity 
binding  on  every  citizen  of  the  United  States.  The 
reason  of  this  duty  is  that  the  evil  of  slavery  is  a 
national  evil.  i.  It  diminishes  the  national  strength. 
2.  It  diminishes  the  national  wealth.  3.  That  it  is  a 
national  evil  is  apparent  from  the  indirect  acknowl 
edgments  of  the  Southern  people.  Therefore  the  duty 
of  promoting  the  abolition  of  it  is  the  duty  of  every 
citizen. 

"  In  this  great  community  to  which  you  belong, 
there  is  a  deadly  evil — an  evil  at  war  with  all  the  prin 
ciples  of  our  national  happiness,  at  war  with  the  very 
essence  of  our  political  institutions,  at  war  with  the 
spirit  and  influence  of  the  gospel,  at  war  with  purity, 
and  industry,  and  intelligence,  and  whatever  gives 
human  society  order,  or  peace,  or  security,  or  moral 
beauty — an  evil  threatening  by  its  moral  turpitude  to 
bring  down  upon  our  nation  from  above  the  wrath  of 
heaven — an  evil  which  continually  gives  warning  that 


—30— 

by  its  own  inherent  influences  it  will  ere  long  explode 
beneath  us,  scattering  in  fragments  the  fabric  of  our 
institutions,  and  sending  over  the  wide  land  the  fiery 
waves  of  a  volcanic  flood.  And  is  it  for  you  *  *  * 
to  look  coolly  on  an  evil  which  is  advancing  with  rapid 
strides  to  ruin  this  inheritance  ?  *  *  * 

"  i  But  what  can  I  do  ?  I  am  only  an  individual  citi 
zen.  I  have  no  slaves  to  liberate  or  provide  for.  I  am 
remote  from  those  districts  of  our  country  in  which 
slavery  exists,  and  in  which,  of  course,  it  is  to  be 
checked  and  abolished.  What  can  I  do  ?' 

"  In  answering  this  question  *  *  *  let  me  first 
point  out  some  of  the  ways  in  which  slavery  cannot  be 
abolished  or  remedied,  i.  It  cannot  be  abolished  by 
any  legislation  by  the  free  States.  Nor,  2,  by  any  act 
of  the  national  legislature.  Nor,  3,  by  any  immediate 
legislation  of  the  slave  States  ;  first,  because  the  people 
of  those  States  do  not  want  such  legislation,  and  then, 
because,  even  if  it  could  be  ena&ed  against  their  will, 
it  could  not  be  enforced. 

"  We  come  then  to  this  result :  In  order  to  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery,  there  must  be  a  change  of  public 
opinion  in  the  slave  States.  To  this  end,  first,  the 
subject  must  be  better  understood,  and  existing  dif 
ficulties  must  be  obviated,  and  misconceptions  must 
be  rectified.  The  people  of  the  South  must  be  made 
to  understand  that  the  system  of  slavery  which  they 
maintain  is  absurd  in  principle  and  pernicious  in  all 
its  tendencies.  *  *  *  They  must  be  made  to  under 
stand  also  that  though  they  of  the  present  generation 
do  not  sustain  the  guilt  of  having  originated  that 
state  of  society  in  which  they  now  find  themselves, 
yet  if  they  do  nothing  to  alleviate  these  evils,  if  they 
make  no  beginning  which  may  terminate  in  the  entire 
removal  of  the  curse,  they  will  sustain  the  guilt  of 
having  perpetuated  to  their  children,  and  of  having 
fastened  upon  unborn  generations,  a  system  of  which 


the  foundation  is  injustice  and  all  the  tendencies  are 
misery  and  crime.  In  order  to  this,  there  must  not 
only  be  discussion,  but  the  discussion  must  be  so  con 
ducted  as  to  show  that  those  who  are  bent  on  the 
removal  of  the  evil,  while  they  are  determined  in  prin 
ciple  and  immovable  in  resolution,  are  neither  unkind 
in  spirit  nor  rash  in  effort.  It  must  be  seen  and  known 
that  while  the  principle  of  slavery  is  regarded  with  ab 
horrence  and  relentless  opposition,  there  can  be  and  is  a 
spirit  of  liberal  kindness  towards  those  who  have  .been 
born  and  whose  opinions  and  feeling  have  been  formed 
under  the  malignant  influence  of  a  system  so  pernicious. 
In  other  words,  public  opinion  throughout  the  free 
States  must  hold  a  different  course  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  from  that  which  it  now  holds.  Instead  of 
exhausting  itself  fruitlessly  and  worse  than  fruitlessly 
upon  the  operation  of  the  system,  it  must  be  directed 
towards  the  principle  on  which  the  system  rests.  It 
must  become  such  that  on  the  one  hand  the  man  who 
indulges  his  malignity  or  his  thoughtlessness  in  so 
exaggerating  the  evils  attendant  on  the  operation  of 
the  system  as  to  implicate  the  body  of  the  slaveholders 
in  the  charge  of  cruelty  and  tyranny,  shall  find  him 
self  rebuked  and  shamed  by  the  nobler  spirit  that  per 
vades  his  fellow  citizens ;  and  such  that,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  man  who  dares  to  stand  up  in  Congress  and, 
presuming  on  the  forbearance  of  those  who  sent  him, 
attempts  to  purchase  popularity  by  defending  the  prin 
ciple  of  slavery,  shall  find  himself  greeted,  on  his  return 
to  his  constituents,  with  one  loud  burst  of  indignation 
and  reproof." 

It  has  seemed  necessary  to  give  this  large  abstract 
of  a  specimen  sermon  of  that  period  of  "  the  blackness 
of  darkness  of  ignorance  and  indifference,"  of  which 
Mr.  Phillips  says  that  it  is  so  difficult  for  us  to  have 
any  conception — that  period  when,  according  to  Mr. 


—32— 

Garrison  and  his  biographers  generally,  "  there  was 
scarcely  a  man  who  dared  to  peep  or  mutter  on  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery ;  when  the  pulpit  and  the  press  were 
dumb ;  when  no  public  addresses  were  delivered,  no 
reproofs,  no  warnings,  no  entreaties  were  uttered  in  the 
ears  of  the  people ;  when  silence,  almost  unbroken 
silence,  prevailed  universally." 

Now  I  am  sure  that  certain  questions  will  rise  in  your 
minds  in  view  of  the  contrast  between  these  represen 
tations  and  this  fact.  You  are  asking  yourselves, 
whether  this  was  not  an  exceptional  man,  breaking  the 
"  universal  silence  "  with  his  solitary  voice  ;  whether 
this  was  not  an  exceptional  sermon,  a  youthful  indis 
cretion  which  experience  taught  the  young  man  not  to 
repeat ;  whether  that  notably  conservative  community 
of  New  Haven  did  not  give  the  young  zealot  to  under 
stand  that  he  must  use  more  caution  in  speaking  of 
this  delicate  subject.  Know  then  that  the  preacher 
was  that  Leonard  Bacon  who  is  vilipended  to  this  day 
as  one  of  the  most  flagrant  examples  of  guilty  silence 
or  connivance  concerning  slavery;  and  for  the  rest, 
he  shall  speak  for  himself.  Forty  years  later,  as  he 
was  unbuckling  the  harness  at  the  end  of  his  long  and 
vi&orious  fight,  he  gave,  from  the  same  pulpit,  his  tes 
timony  about  the  beginning  of  it : 

"  At  that  time,  the  religious  feeling  of  the  country 
was  strongly  and,  I  may  say,  unanimously  pronounced 
against  the  institution  of  slavery.  *  *  *  Certainly 
there  was  in  Connecticut  no  party,  religious  or  polit 
ical,  that  dared  to  speak  for  slavery  as  if  it  were  a  just 
or  beneficent  arrangement,  or  as  if  the  institution  was 
capable  of  any  defense,  either  on  grounds  of  natural 


—33— 

justice  or  in  the  light  of  the  Christian  religion.  *  *  * 
From  the  beginning  of  my  official  ministry,  I  spoke 
without  reserve,  from  the  pulpit  and  elsewhere,  against 
slavery  as  a  wrong  and  a  curse,  threatening  disaster 
and  ruin  to  the  nation.  Many  years  I  did  this  without 
being  blamed,  except  as  I  was  blamed  for  not  going  far 
enough.  Not  a  dog  dared  to  wag  his  tongue  at  me  for 
speaking  against  slavery.  I  have  always  held  and 
always  asserted  the  same  principles  on  that  subject 
which  I  held  and  asserted  at  the  beginning." 

At  this  point  I  might  rest,  as  having  reached  the 
end  of  my  theme,  which  is  Anti-Slavery  before  Garri 
son.  For  about  this  time  occurs  the  first  awakening 
of  Mr.  Garrison's  conscience  from  its  unaccountable 
protracted  torpor  concerning  slavery.  His  boyhood, 
up  to  the  age  of  fifteen,  had  been  passed  in  the  midst 
of  an  anti-slavery  agitation  that  convulsed  the  conti 
nent.  As  a  boy  of  ten,  and  afterwards  as  a  young  man 
of  eighteen,  he  had  passed  considerable  time  at  Balti 
more,  where  the  presence  of  slavery  and  the  shocking 
scenes  of  the  slave  trade  were  a  continual  public  hor 
ror.  Returning  to  the  North,  he  found  himself  again 
in  an  atmosphere  all  reeking  with  anti-slavery  senti 
ment.  The  pulpits  were  resounding  with  anti-slavery 
appeals.  The  press  was  teeming  with  anti-slavery 
books,  pamphlets  and  articles.  In  the  words  of  Mr. 
Whitemarsh  B.  Seabrook  of  South  Carolina,  "  slavery, 
slavery,  slavery  was  everywhere."  The  zealous  young 
abolitionists  from  Andover  came  down  to  Mr.  Garri 
son's  own  village,  preaching  their  crusade  against 
slavery.  But  nothing  of  all  this  seems  to  have  come 
to  Mr.  Garrison's  ears.  A  brisk  young  newspaper 
man,  interested  in  pretty  much  every  other  public 


—34— 

question,  he,  according  to  his  own  confession,  remained 
till  the  year  1827  sunken  in  ignorance  and  indiffer 
ence  regarding  that  slavery  question  in  which  every 
one  except  himself  was  interested.  He  says  of  himself, 
in  a  public  speech  : 

"  In  1827  I  went  to  Boston  and  edited  a  paper  called 
The  National  Philanthropist.  It  was  devoted  to  the 
cause  of  temperance.  Up  to  that  hour  I  had  known 
little  or  nothing  of  slavery,  as  to  the  number  of  slaves 
held,  or  as  to  where  they  were  held.  So  completely 
had  the  whole  question  been  put  out  of  sight  that  I 
was  almost  wholly  ignorant  in  respect  to  it."* 

"  The  question  put  out  of  sight !"  It  does  not  appear 
that  it  was  out  of  the  sight  of  any  man  in  New  Eng 
land  except  Mr.  Garrison  himself. 

Two  facts  in  Mr.  Garrison's  career  have  received  no 
adequate  attention  from  his  biographers  and  eulogists : 
first,  the  long  asphyxia  of  his  conscience  on  the  subject 
of  slavery ;  and  secondly,  when  his  moral  sense  was 
at  last  aroused  from  its  torpor,  his  apparently  sincere 
impression  that  nobody  but  himself  had  any  moral 
sense  on  the  subject  at  all ;  so  that  at  last,  standing  in 
the  Park  Street  pulpit,  the  seventh  in  a  series  of 
annual  anti-slavery  orators,  as  if  he  were  a  lone  voice 
crying  in  the  wilderness,  he  could  repeat  the  familiar 
commonplaces  of  his  six  predecessors  as  if  they  were 
startling  novelties,  and  speak  of  the  slaves,  the  sub 
jects  of  more  thought,  sympathy,  prayer  and  self- 
denying  effort  than  any  other  class  of  people  in  the 
country,  as  those  "  over  whose  sufferings  scarcely  an 

*  Proceedings  of  the  Am.  Anti-Slavery  Society  at  its  third  Decade. 
Speech  of  W.  L.  Garrison,  p.  120. 


—35— 

eye  weeps,  or  a  heart  melts,  or  a  tongue  pleads  either 
to  God  or  man,"  for  whom  "  Christianity  has  done  by 
direct  effort  comparatively  nothing."  He  is  a  psycho 
logical  puzzle,  to  be  turned  over  to  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research. 

From  the  tardy  entrance  of  Mr.  Garrison  into  the  anti- 
slavery  movement,  we  may  date  a  growing  change  in 
the  methods  and  results  of  that  movement.  Up  to  this 
time,  it  had  been  earnest,  unremitting,  unsparing,  in 
denouncing  slavery,  while  temperate  and  considerate 
in  dealing  with  those  involved  in  relations  with 
slavery.  It  had  been  urgent  in  demanding  an  imme 
diate  beginning  of  the  work  of  abolition,  while  recog 
nizing  that  it  would  take  time  to  complete  the  work. 
It  had  never  degenerated  into  a  sectional  controversy ; 
— even  in  the  intense  excitement  over  the  Missouri 
question,  says  Jeremiah  Evarts,  "  there  was  less  of 
what  could  be  called  party  spirit,  or  local  jealousy,  or 
sectional  prejudice,  than  we  ever  knew  in  any  great 
national  question. "*  The  North  was  solid  against 
slavery,  and  if  there  was  division  at  the  South,  the 
sober  intelligence  and  the  moral  and  religious  princi 
ple  of  that  section  were  unanimous  on  the  same  side, 
and  there  was  hearty  co-operation  with  Southern  aboli 
tionists. 

And  the  sober,  conscientious,  reasonable  anti-slavery 
of  that  time  had  been  nobly  successful.  Its  earliest 
triumph  had  been  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  drawn  by  the 
hand  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  It  had  secured  the  aboli 
tion  of  slavery,  or  measures  ultimating  in  the  abolition 
of  it,  in  every  State  north  of  Maryland.  It  was  carry- 

*Panoplist,  XVI,  487. 


-36- 

ing  forward  efforts  that  gave  good  promise  of  like 
results  in  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Ten 
nessee  and  Kentucky.  It  had  failed  indeed  in  exclud 
ing  slavery  from  Missouri,  but  had  secured  the  vast 
residue  of  the  Missouri  Territory,  by  the  pledge  of  the 
public  honor,  against  the  entrance  of  it.  By  the  stren 
uous  labors  of  such  fearless  abolitionists  as  Robert 
Breckinridge,  and  John  D.  Paxton,  and  President 
Young,  and  John  Rankin;  and  especially  of  Benjamin 
Lundy,  it  had  covered  a  great  part  of  the  slaveholding 
country  with  a  network  of  abolition  societies,  repre 
sented  by  anti-slavery  newspapers.  Free  discussion 
was  in  the  air.  Manumissions  were  taking  place  by 
hundreds  and  thousands  in  a  year.  The  hearts  of  good 
men  were  glowing  with  the  hope  that  that  which  had 
been  secured  in  more  than  half  the  original  States 
might  everywhere  be  achieved — the  lawful,  peaceful 
abolition  of  slavery. 

At  this  point,  Enter  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  and 
presto,  change !  Within  a  strangely  short  time,  instead 
of  a  solid  North  and  a  divided  South,  the  North  became 
divided  and  the  South  at  one.  At  the  North,  the 
leaders  of  anti-slavery  effort,  who  for  long  years  had 
been  bearing  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  conflict,  were 
repelled  with  foul  vituperation  by  shamefully  tardy 
recruits  who  through  the  long  struggle  had  not  lifted 
one  finger  on  the  side  of  freedom ;  and  by  schism 
within  schism  the  force  of  anti-slavery  effort  was  dis 
sipated.  Meanwhile  under  an  incessant  storm  of 
menaces  and  maledictions  pelting  indiscriminately 
upon  friend  and  foe  at  the  South,  the  terror  of  the 
Southern  people  was  awakened ;  the  Southern  aboli- 


—37— 

tion  societies  were  extinguished  and  their  platforms 
and  presses  were  silenced ;  manumissions  ceased ;  a 
spirit  of  suspicion  and  vindictive  hatred  toward  the 
North  was  engendered ;  the  hope  of  a  peaceful  and 
bloodless  abolition  of  slavery  was  at  an  end. 

The  descriptions  of  prevailing  demoralization  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  which  Mr. Garrison  and  his  eulogists 
delight  in,  so  far  as  there  is  any  truth  in  them  (and 
really  they  are  not  entirely  mendacious)  are  misdated. 
This  demoralization  was  not  the  antecedent  of  Mr. 
Garrison's  work ;  it  was  the  sequel  of  it.  But  it  would 
be  unjust  to  his  memory  to  infer  that  he  was  the  sole 
cause  of  that  calamitous  revolution  in  public  opinion 
which  arrested  the  progress  of  emancipation  and  abo 
lition  and  finally  plunged  the  nation  into  civil  war. 
He  was  by  no  means  the  sole  author  of  this  enormous 
mischief ;  he  only  wrought  towards  it  in  more  or  less 
unconscious  combination  with  other  diabolic  agencies. 


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DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


APR  4   1991 


PAMPHLET  i 

'7   Syraci 
E   Stockt< 


Bacon,  L.W. 

Anti- slavery  before 


son. 


Call 


E186.6 
B3 


c  c 


